Plan would raise meal costs at Norfolk schools

After reading the comments about the quality of lunch for the cost, I wanted to add a point to ponder...many students within Norfolk Public Schools are on free or reduced lunch but are able to drop $2.00 - $5.00 on snacks and juices daily. The problem I have is that some of the lunch items are not just "Cardboard" as described but can be okay but to see students that receive the lunches for free or reduced price to load up their tray and then throw it in the trash can before they sit down at the table irritates me. Especially when they drink the juices and eat the snacks(goldfish crackers, potato chips, rice krispy bars, and slushees)that they are able to buy daily. The people that are truly going to feel the increase in prices are the teachers, faculty, staff and the few students that pay full price. If we are worried about the rising costs of school lunches, let start addressing the qualifications fo

We all know that School Food ! It has for centuries. Why do you think school food fights started. Not because the food tasted good. But I'm reading this and DOES NORFOLK realize how cheap their lunches are? I think the Pilot should have added the fact that last year Virginia Beach High School paid $1.80 per lunch and this year we are paying $2.00 per lunch. So enjoy your .50 cent discount till the year 2010 and then you'll still be paying .25 cent less than VB but you can bet VB will be paying more then $2.00 in 2010.

to the days of the cafeteria staff actually cooking the food on site? My kid is no longer in NPS(she graduated in 2005)and when she was ..she rarely ate school food even tho we qualified for reduced price lunches and I gave her lunch money everyday. She would come home starving not only b/c the food was awful, but also b/c she had to eat lunch at 10am. A bag of chips & a soda doesn't stay w/you until 2:15pm. Get some cooks, buy the food wholesale and prepare it on site..the kids may eat it once in a while. I wonder how much food is thrown out on a daily basis in just 1 school? Talk about waste.

The entree, if you want to call it that, that is served is disgusting. It's barely edible. Whether it's an "egg roll" or "spaghetti" or whatever else they mask it as - has nothing to do with how healthy it is -it's not like we're talking a salad - I'm talking "pizza" that is some cardboard like crust and I am pretty sure if you put salt and pepper on some cardboard, it would taste better than what I had that day. Go eat some of it if you think they are doing such a great job and let us know how it goes. I've been there and tried it on multiple days thinking it was a fluke - the only thing that is a fluke is I actually paid for that food all those years. One day it was nachos (how healthy is that anyway?) and the cheese was hard and it had plain chips. Sad. And you want us to pay higher for this crap? Not this household.

are the days of the school cafeteria doing most, if not all of the food preparation. I provide after school care for my girlfriend's daughter, who attends Ghent Elementary. She comes home starving! It's no wonder, with the cr@p they are being served and the short amount of time they have to eat it. The schools need to get back to doing food preparation, and cut out Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. My youngest son has Type 1 Diabetes, and I thank GOD every day for giving me the patience to home-school my children. He'd be in real trouble if he ate the garbage that is served in school. Parents, I urge you to feed your children breakfast at home, and pack their lunches, for their sakes!

As to comments complaining about the quality and quantity of food at the schools, nutritional food has been a major determination as to the make up of food and perhaps quantity to fight child obesity. This is a State and National initiative thats fighting not only obesity but other terrible diseases such as diabetes. Norfolk also has the only central kitchen in the area so the quality of the food is well monitored. If something is determined to be stale, alleged by one individual, contact the central kitchen staff. They would like to know and in turn follow up. The child nutrition staff do a big job 5 days a week for 60 schools, quite an under taking and they do it well.

My daughter has been in the Norfolk Public School system from K-7th and one day I had lunch with her at Larrymore. Now I know why she's starving by the time school gets out - it was not even edible. I brought up my lunch money to eat with her and they informed me, that even though I was getting the same crappy meal, I had to pay the 'adult' price - it was the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten. Ever since then I have packed her lunch. I told her in the future, she needs to voice her opinion more. Had I known that was her meal everyday I would have started packing it a lot sooner - which of course is more expensive, but it is not the point of money. If you don't agree or believe me, then go eat with your child one day. You'll be amazed at what they are given as food. I don't remember high school food tasting this horrible so maybe this is for the younger crowd who can't voice their opinion as loud? What can you expect fo

If they threw out the large corporate food providers and just treated the school cafe as a private operated entity, they would get better food for a little more cost. However, the return in health and well-being would be tremendous. Eating healthy whole food is still cheaper than eating sugar laced cardboard.

It looks like the city wants to penalize the "parents" of the children who have actually accepted the responsibilty of raising their children instead of being a baby momma or baby daddy!
Keep on making life better when you do nothing and accept no responsibilty for your own actions and pretty soon everyone paying for it will decide to follow suit!

I don't take issue with raising the prices of food if at the same time the system improves the quality of food being served to these students. Very little food is actually prepared at the individual schools. The food often tastes stale and appears to have little nutritional value. Although there are several schools in Norfolk that have a large demographic eligible for free and reduced lunches, those in charge of food preparation and budgeting do not have the right to feed them as if they deserve substandard food.

As a NPS teacher, I think it is ambitous at best to expect students to pay more than 1.25 for the lunch they receive. We are talking about growing children and what they receive at school lunch is the equivalent of cardboard sandwiches. I ventured to the cafe one day to find that lunch was an an egg roll,not the lucious egg rolls from Kin's Wok, but a pencil thin egg roll. Get real.

when are the public schools going to serve dinner, too?